Throughout our lives, we deal with change. People come, people go, jobs which worked at one time in life cease to have meaning in another time, and we all want to know how to play the changes thoughtfully so we can come out ahead when the future arrives. Today we take a new look at how to move toward the job, career, relationship, or life that we desire.

This is part one in a series which offers ways to approach the endless changes of life so that we don’t fall into confusion or become a victim of circumstances. To find the way which works for us, we need to examine what’s true for us so that we can actively shape the future as it presents itself. It involves learning “to think in the future” while living in the NOW. “Thinking in the future” is one of the survival tools we Truth seeking Souls must cultivate if we want to successfully navigate coming changes and life’s constant instability.

Life is about growth in various ways and directions. All that lives grows according to its nature until that way, branch, direction, or tendency has no more potential and then ends. How we handle the endings and "in betweens" determines the subsequent direction of our life adventure in applying our skills and gifts in ways that fulfill us and make for a better world.

This world is impermanent, and all of us deal with impermanent conditions throughout our lives. That’s the way this evolutionary system operates. What we learn and do creates patterns that at some point are fulfilled. When we have fulfilled whatever it is we have to fulfill in action, thought, or feeling, if we can’t find a new potential, those things end whether we want them to or not. Then we must turn in new directions or die in some way, since to cling to the outmoded and obsolete does not offer us nourishment on any level.

We all like the comfort of the known and familiar, the consistent, the "safe," even when it no longer provides us what we need to grow into a greater life and awareness. Just remember that nothing is "safe" when measured with the yardstick of on-going eternal change, since change demonstrates the impermanence of just about everything on Earth. Because the past is constantly giving way to the NOW, when we learn how to navigate the endings and "in betweens" we find a greater peace in the unfolding process of our own growth.

For many, it's the end of how they've lived, who they've related to, and even their sense of themselves. Old jobs, old relationships, old ways of approaching new experiences and possibilities are slipping down the timestream, sometimes with breathtaking speed and finality. It’s definitely the end of an old era, so what can we do when we confront endings? How can we navigate our lives into more helpful actions, feelings, and thoughts?

Because so much of what we have experienced up to now is so different than anything we’ve confronted before, a sense of being disconnected from the past is expectable. As we learn “to think in the future,” keep in mind we are now in a transitional era, where many old ways of thinking don't work anymore and the new reality is not yet well formed.

Because many old ideas about how we “should be” are vanishing, we need to welcome new ideas of what is, and what could be. To navigate the endings and transitions into a new life, we must remember "New wine requires new wineskins." In moving into a better future, we must find new "containers" in our personality and patterns of behavior that adequately suit the requirements of a new life.

What we do is not separate from who we are. Even if it seems that external conditions are unnecessarily limiting, they exist only because we continue to dance with that condition. As I explain in the section on “The Ring Pass Not” in my book Saturn: Spiritual Master, Spiritual Friend, we are bound by certain limitations until we do not need them any longer. Then we can choose to expand our vision, our effectiveness, and our field of activity.

When we see that something no longer nourishes us, then we can stop beating our heads against the proverbial wall and turn to something new that suits our need in the NOW. What we turn to indicates whether we move into new experiences or have merely swapped "the devil we know for one we don't."

When it's time to leave the old behind, we can consciously participate in creating a better future by making a list of what we know worked well for us in the past, since what has happened once can happen again, even if it must be in a new form. In reinventing our life, there are always elements of good patterns in our past that we can use in creating our future. These productive patterns help us see how we are growing according to our nature into new productive patterns in the present.

So if you struggle with endings, of unknowns and apprehensions of what will or will not be, detach from the "not knowing" and contemplate your life as a timestream of experiences coaxing forth skills, strengths, realizations and talents throughout the difficulties and endings. You are an eternally evolving Consciousness, collecting forms of understanding to apply in your world the best you are able.

We are Eternals inhabiting electromagnetic bodies that also feel, think, and aspire. Our minds keep us moving into changing perceptions and interpretations, while our feelings exist on deeper, more visceral levels. That's why we are deeply moved by our feelings when things end.

We also are one Life together, and not separate from the collective Life field. Our lives, being conditioned by the 5 senses and the mind, are always somewhat perceptually challenged, since these are imperfect by any way of measuring perception. We all feel, and many of our feeling responses have been conditioned by imperfect perception of past experiences.

The problem here is that because we feel and are a part of All-That-Is, often we are feeling "all there is" whether we know it or not. We may or may not be acknowledging what we personally are feeling, but since we also live within a collective Consciousness, we're feeling that as well.

What the collective feels and knows becomes an ocean of feelings we all experience in some way whether we're aware of it or not. In short, given the collective feeling that we are at the end of time, or the end of the Age, we all are feeling that something greater is ending, along with whatever ends for us personally. That's why the feeling seems so vast at times.

We all have imagination and an ability to be creative in ways we've never known. We have a mind that when trained can easily cut through illusions and fears and express the strength of our heart's direct knowing. With an open mind and a strong heart we can move into unknown futures and find ourselves doing our Being in excellent ways.

That requires recognizing when to let go of the past so that a new potential can be attracted and glimpsed. Even when it seems that change is forced upon us, we can still release any negative feelings and redirect our consciousness to a new sense of potential effectiveness. It’s certainly better to voluntarily let go of old patterns which no longer fulfill us, especially those which create suffering and feelings of lack, fear, and frustration.

As we learn to cooperate with our own evolving process and let go of old patterns that no longer fulfill us, we create the psychic space to attract something more appropriate to our evolved Self. While often we move uncertainly into the future "waiting for the other shoe to drop," just as often we find something much better than we had before. Sometimes "the light at the end of the tunnel" really is a new day dawning, and not just the headlight of a locomotive coming right at us!

So if you have experienced a loss, whether of a job, a friend or loved one, a sense of purpose or an old way of life, it's a clear signal that there's something better out there for you. As we learn to "get out of our own way" we cooperate with our unique Dharma, the specialized function we're here to play in the world.

The Sanskrit word Dharma has as its approximate meaning "true function," or "essential quality of character." It is said the Dharma that can be known is not the "true Dharma," but I believe we can catch glimpses of our unique Dharma by examining the recurring lessons of our lives, seeing how these have led us out of darkness to Light, from illusion to Reality, from fear to a greater Love, and from our lower nature to our Higher Self.

From one point of view, life is a dance, a play of All-That-Is eternally changing forms for our experience so we can realize more than we used to know. As our lives shape shift, it's up to us to embrace and enjoy being the roles that are ours to learn and become skilled in expressing in our unique ways and experiences.

While sometimes endings can be quite difficult, what renews us is often a joyous thing. The trick is to let go of the feelings of difficulty while embracing the joy of the possible.

Change patterns of thinking, interpreting, feeling and acting, and you take command of your life in dramatic ways. Then relax into simply enjoying the many ways to do your Being throughout the changes, demonstrating past skills and strengths while cultivating new ones. Then each ending becomes the foundation for a new beginning.

Welcome to the Now!!

Reprinted on crystalwind.ca with written permission from Robert Wilkinson. Copying this article to other blogs is strictly prohibited. It is copyright protected. 

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